View from and beyond the couch

Comments Off on View from and beyond the couch08 August 2018

Yesterday evening

I’ve had what for me was a very tough day. Work this morning, about which I cannot comment, and mental health therapy this afternoon. I was shattered after therapy and drove home like a hopeless drunk, which I wasn’t. I’ve spent the rest of the day and much of this evening trying to pick up the pieces.

Therapy is, I think, getting somewhere. It’s supposed to take you to some deep and dark places.

I know, and I knew before, that my severe clinical depression has been caused, at least in part, by loss. Not just the loss of individuals by way of death, but the loss of all sorts of things throughout my life, including chances and opportunities, crises at many levels. I let out a lot of stuff today and there was a time, a few hours ago, when I felt like giving up altogether. Not on life itself, but giving up the fight to at least have half-decent mental health.

I hope I can sleep well tonight because recent post therapy nights have caused severe nightmares that have been preciously close to panic attacks, which to be fair have subsided in the days that followed.

This morning

I had the deepest of deep sleeps until, I don’t know: around 3.00 am, after which sleep was fitful and everything seemed to be happening very quickly, frantically. When it was time to get up, I just wanted to stay in bed and stay away from the rest of the world, at least for the rest of the day. The post therapy trauma – and that is how it feels – hangs around.

We talked a lot about loss yesterday but today my feelings are all of failure, a wasted life of missed and lost opportunities, of unfulfilled potential and still following a road to nowhere. I am constantly told that I should look at all the good things – my wonderful family and friends and much, much more – and the truth is that I do. I’d go further and say that without them I’d be nowhere, quite possibly literally nowhere.

I have to get through a very long day today and my sense of duty and professionalism will get me through. I am so weary this morning. But I have to imagine me without therapy.